Making some progress...

I can now get one picture taken at a time. Yeah!

And Malachi is definitely talking now! :) And talking ALL THE TIME! It is so wonderful to finally hear his voice saying words, communicating his wants and needs. He came to the kitchen the other night, grabbed a juice cup and said, "More please." Music to my ears. I didn't have to ask him if he wanted a drink. He told me!

He is mimicking what Kevin and I say, which is so cute, and his vocabulary seems to be growing exponentially. Some new words (or words that have gotten clearer recently):

Please

Thank you (Even unprompted from time to time!)

Car ("tar")

Truck ("tuck")

Tow truck

Kitty cat

Daddy and Dad

Mama (He has said Daddy and Mama in the past, but he says them with much more intentionality-to get our attention or "ask" us a question-and correctly-I'm Mama and Kevin is Daddy and not vice versa.)

Duck (He LOVES his ducks at the lake.)

Dog

Puppy

Go (We hear this ALL THE TIME!)

Stop ("top")

He is also doing really well at picture identification. We have a bunch of books with just one picture per page. You can ask him questions such as, "Which one goes in the water?" and he'll correctly point to a boat. So exciting!

OK, enough bragging. Sorry. I just had to share.

Fourth of July

Still catching up on my lack of blogging...Fourth of July was fun. Our neighbor hosts quite the celebration for the kids. A bike parade, complete with a banner, starts off the festivities, followed by the star spangled banner and the Pledge of Allegiance. Next up? Old-fashioned games: three-legged races, sack races. The finale? A massive water balloon fight, a watermelon seed spitting contest, and ice cream sandwiches. Does it get any more American than this?
Doesn't my little guy look so grown up with his new haircut?

With Grandma and Grandpa. A quick visit on their way back from Florida for a Taylor family reunion (which we sadly had to miss).

Yes, we're still here.

I know it's been a really long time...not so sure anyone is even checking our site these days, but here's an update.

Kevin is in his fourth and final year of dental school. He's doing a couple of internships this summer. The first was at a hospital and REALLY intense. Right now he's working with kids at a public health clinic and enjoying it. The work is good and the hours are great. We're enjoying the extra time he's had at home.

I've cut back my hours at work...just by 10% (which is 4 hours per week), so nothing drastic. It will help me have more time at home in mornings a couple of days a week.

Malachi is making some developmental jumps right now. He's saying a lot more. Still single words, but his vocabulary is growing, especially now that he is mimicking us. The other day I told Malachi that we were going to get in the car after I grabbed him a snack and sippy. When I turned my back to walk in the kitchen I heard, "snackandsippy?" :) I was so excited!!!

Some other new tricks/skills:

-He can jump.

-He can climb up on his little chairs (much to my dismay he giggles in delight that he can do this).

-He can wave bye-bye now. On a recent trip we were getting our shoes on after going through security. He didn't want to stand up, so I took a couple steps away and said, "OK. Bye-bye." To which he smiled really big and waved bye-bye...and remained seated.)

-He is scribbling with crayons now. He insists on having one crayon in each hand. At school, the rule is one crayon at a time, unless you're Malachi.

-He's learing to play duck-duck-goose. He has the duck, duck, duck part down, but he just laughs really hard if you call him goose (he doesn't run around the circle).

-At red lights he signs and says "stop," and at green lights he points forward and says "go." He's so into it that in the car now he just waits for the next light. Very cute.

-He loves to help Daddy make coffee in the morning. He brings the ground coffee from the fridge to the counter, puts the filter in, and fills the carafe with water. He LOVES helping Daddy.

-He is close to being able to catch a ball, much to Kevin's delight, and he's learning to use a hockey stick. Yes, we bought him a hockey stick. He loves basketball and hockey. He can say: base for baseball, golf, hockey, hockey puck, basketball. We're working on tennis. Daddy and Malachi "read" the sports page almost every day. So cute.

-Malachi can point to his body parts, with elbow being the newest fascination.

-He is riding a bike now (not with the pedals, but walking/running on it instead of pushing it from behind). Such a big boy!

Just happened upon this pic. My poor baby had a bad fever, I still up late getting work done, so to keep an eye on him while I was working away on the computer, I laid Malachi down in the living room. Foster joined him. I think Foster appreciates it when Malachi sleeps--no louds squeals of delight, chasing around the room, pulling tail--although Malachi is very generous with the cat treats, which Foster definitely takes advantage of!

Hunting for Easter eggs. Wow, I really haven't posted in a while!

Hopefully more to come, more often. Our little guy's PASSION for the camera prevents a lot of the picture taking we used to do, but we'll do our best.

Bear

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit this weekend to celebrate Uncle Brian's birthday. They brought new Steelers gear for everyone in honor of the big superbowl win. I got a cute Steeler bear, which Malachi has apparently claimed. He says, "a bear, a bear, a bear," hugs it, and lays down with it on the ground. It is too cute! We've not seen him cuddle a stuffed animal or baby doll before, so it was really sweet to see him do this for the first time.

Malachi put on quite a show for Grandma and Grandpa. He babbled A LOT! Yea!!! He used his fork more at meals. He pointed at lots of things. Yea!!! He followed Grandma's directions to put his toys in the bins (hmmm...can Grandma come more often?). He played "music" with his cups during his bath (my eardrums are still ringing). He climbed up on Uncle Brian's bed and stood up on it--that was definitely a new one. And he never ceases to amaze Grandma and Grandpa with how much he can eat. He chowed down at a local buffet. His meal was free, but the restaurant had to have taken a loss. I think he ate almost as much as Daddy!

At some point, I'll try to post the one picture I got this weekend. Seriously, it is impossible to have the camera out without him having a meltdown if you don't give it to him. A budding photographer perhaps, or a toddler in full bloom! :)

New tricks

Malachi is keeping us busy these days. I thought I'd share some of his new tricks/habits/behaviors.

-He dances like crazy when he's excited (which is about all the time). It's adorable. His arms go up and he just marches fast in place.

-He seems to be stretching up these days. It will be interesting to see how tall he is at his two year check-up. Yes, he's almost two already! I don't know where the time goes.

-He LOVES flashcards. We have three sets now and he'll just sit and watch while we go through them one at a time, over and over and over again. His interest in the cards seemed to peek after I took away his computer priviledges. He loves to watch a slideshow of our pictures on the computer, but he became so obssessive about watching them. That's ALL he wanted to do--to the point where he would melt down if I didn't turn the computer on. So...no computer for a while. Mean Mama, I guess. I'm glad he's into the flashcards though. He can point out his hands now and signs "eat" for the picture of a girl eating.

-We're hearing more sounds from him. This weekend especially, he's been pretty vocal with his babbling. It's mostly Da and variations thereof, but we'll take it!

-He's great at petting our cat Foster now. Kevin worked with him on being very gentle, and now when Malachi pets the cat gently, Malachi claps for himself for doing such a good job. What a goober.

-Malachi is beginning to follow directions fairly consistently and seems to understand so much more of what we're saying. I love it!

-He still really enjoys his baths. The best part is after the bath, when I have him bundled up in his towel. He loves to just snuggle while we (uh, I) chit chat about our days at school and work. It's our special mama-Malachi time.

-He got a Little Tykes basketball hoop for Christmas and he's great at dunking.

-He loves when I hike a Nerf football to him. He throws himself onto his belly to watch me. So funny.

-He love ring around the rosey and playing with his new parachute.

-He doesn't like snow apparently (I'll try to upload video soon, but blogger isn't cooperating at the moment).

Onto the pictures...

We're having trouble getting good pics of Malachi these days. He insists upon having the camera the instant he spots it. Self-portraits seem to work.

Listening to some jazz at an African-American Festival. This is what we did to celebrate our First Annual Family Day.
Malachi's first real snow. We really got a lot this time, and it was a big surprise, too.

Long overdue update

Bad blogger, I know. It's been over a month. So much has happened. Unfortunately, my Grandmother (Malachi's G.G. , my Dad's mom) passed away the week before Christmas. She had been in the hospital since the week before Thanksgiving, so it had been a long, stressful month for the family. We will miss Grandma very much.

On Mother's Day last year, she was the one who finally got Malachi motivated to use a walker.

Although I already suspected as much, talking with Grandma's friends and extended family members at the visitation and funeral confirmed that she never missed an opportunity to share pictures of her great-grandbabies. She was so proud of them all.

This was our first Christmas with Malachi, and we were lucky to share it with my parents (Malachi's Grammie and Papa), my Nana and Pa, and my brother Mike and his wife Courtney and son Nate. Uncle Mike and I helped the boys make a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve day. You won't believe this (thus the picture for evidence is included), but I unknowningly bought a Devil's Food cake mix for the occasion! The boys sprinkled reindeer dust on the lawn on Christmas Eve. Cute!

The boys did really well together, in large part because of Nate's high tolerance! We had fun each day with a tricycle parade, singing "Jingle Bells." Nate would run over to Malachi and start pulling him toward the bikes saying, "Parade Cousin! Parade!" It was adorable!

Christmas morning, Malachi slept in. Figures...the one morning I WANT to get up early! He wasn't interested in unwrapping presents; he was totally content playing with the toys we brought from home. Guess we could have all saved some money on gifts!

Before leaving for Kevin's parent's (Malachi's Grandma and Grandpa), the boys made reindeer cookies with Grammie. Malachi didn't quite understand why we weren't eating the dough.

We had fun at Grandma and Grandpa's. We played at the gym and went to a science center. The science center was a blast with a fun activity area for little ones on one floor that resulted in Malachi getting soaked-he just loves water!

Lucky Malachi got Mama and Grandma all to himself one day while the rest of the family went skiing and tubing. He did a good job helping Grandma with laundry (sorry, I don't have a picture of that!). He loved Grandma and Grandpa's refrigerator covered in pictures of all his family members; we looked at those pictures OVER and OVER and OVER again. Those of you who know Malachi know that he never tires of pictures.

Malachi is doing really well. His tubes fell out (I actually caught one before it hit the floor--They're wider than you would think, and green in case you were wondering.). He is signing really well know and trying to talk more. His signs include: more, drink, eat, and me (as in "I want that. Please give it to me"). "Me" is a dangerous one. Now any time he wants something he signs me (e.g., toy, Mama's hand, Mama's dinner fork, Mama's dinner). Next lesson...just because you sign that you want something doesn't mean you always get it! :)

I attribute this new development growth spurt to a "Grandma miracle." Every time we visit the Grandma's and he gets all that extra special lovin' and attention, he starts doing lots of new stuff. I love it! Aren't Grandma's great?

At any rate, we're getting some more language from him, slowly but surely. He's said "kitty" a few times and "uhhh" for up. He even said "dance, dance, dance," a little phrase often said in our household. He dances (very River Dance like) quite often. His teachers have nicknames him "Happy Feet."

We're well into the discipline now. The main issues are throwing and hitting. The throwing gets toys taken away. Hopefully the reality of losing the toy will do the trick. The other issue is that he gets excited (like when we're greeting people) and bats at my face--lovely, right? My glasses have seen better days to say the least. We're trying timeout. No miracles yet, but stay tuned. I'm optimistic! We're welcoming other input for consideration (we just can't promise we'll listen!).

O, Christmas Tree!

We bought our first real Christmas tree! I'm so excited to finally have a real Christmas tree. Kevin and I typically travel so much during the holidays, and/or we were in small apartments, so it didn't make much sense to have one, but Malachi was excuse I needed to get a REAL tree. Brian and Kevin put it in the stand for me, and then the boys watched football while I decorated and listened to Christmas carols. Malachi doesn't seem too interested in the tree, yet. Neither does Foster. I think I'm the only one who cares about the tree, but that's okay! :)

Here is Malachi's first ornament that my mom made for him last year.

Go Steelers! Is that a mini-Bus I spy? It was a sports-filled Sunday with the NCAA Women's National Championship soccer game (UNC women won against previously undefeated Notre Dame) in the afternoon and a Steeler win in the evening. He's starting to look so grown up, I can't believe it.